Home Invasion Survivor William Petit to Have Baby With New Wife

Six years after his wife and children were killed in a nightmarish home invasion in Connecticut, William Petit and his new wife, Christine Paluf, announced they are having a baby together.

Petit was the sole survivor of the horrific 2007 attack during which two men, Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky, held his family hostage, raped and strangled his wife, molested one daughter, and then set the house on fire while his two daughters were bound to beds.

Petit, who had been beaten with a bat and tied up in the basement, escaped to a neighbor’s house and called for help as the fire erupted, but his wife, Jennifer Hawke-Petit, and their daughters, 17-year-old Hayley and 11-year-old Michaela, were killed.

Benoit Photography/AP Photo

Petit met Paluf as she did volunteer photography work for the Petit Family Foundation, which he set up after the murders. Paluf attended the trials of Komisarjevsky and Hayes with Petit, and the pair married in 2012.

The baby is expected around Dec. 3, 2013, according to the family’s spokesperson, Richard Healey.